ANTIPHON
576
ANTIPHONARY
sing to thee, Alleluia ", and Psalm xciv for the third
antiphon with the same antiphonal responses. If
it be a wecktlay, however, the response to the second
antiphon usually is: "By the prayers of the saints,
O Sav-iour, save us", wliile the response to the third
antiphon is, "O Son of God, who art wonderful in
tliy Saints save us who sing to Thee, Alleluia".
The prayer of the first antiphon, recited secretly
by the priest, is for the mercy of God upon the whole
people; that of the second antiphon for the welfare
of the Church and people; while the prayer of the
third antiphon, asking that the prayers of the
faithful may be granted, has been incorporated
bodily into the Anghcan Book of Common Prayer
under the name of "A Prayer of St. Chrysostom".
Besides the antiphons of the Mass there are also the antiphons of Vespers commonly called the kathismata, or psalms sung while seated, and the antiphons of matins called the anabathmoi, or psalms of degrees, as well as certain chants used on Holy Thursday, all of which are sung antiphonally. These latter are not usually known as antiphons, but are generally called by their special names.
'QpoXSyiof rb ixiya, (Propaganda Press, Rome, 1876); Char- HON, Les siiinhs et divines liturgies dc I'eglise grecque catholique orientule (Beirut and Paris, 1904); Cluqnet, Dictionnmre de noma lilurgiqiLts dans I'eglise grecque (Paris, 1895); Robertson, The Divine Liturgies (London, 1894); Bjerring, Otfices of the Orientnl Church (New York, 1884); Sbornik Bogomolcni, (Peremysl, Galicia, 1890), 55-59. ANDREW J. ShiPMAN.
Antiphon, In Greek Liturgy. — The Greek Liturgy uses antiphons, not only in the Office, but also in the Mass, at Vespers, and at all the canonical Hours. Nor is this all; antiphons have their prescribed place in almost every liturgical function. The essence of antiphonal psalmody consists in the alternation set up between the soloists and the choir in the render- ing of a psalm. About the fourth century, alternate singing which up to that time had been in use only in secular gatherings, found its way into meetings for liturgical worship. This does not, however, imply that the antiphonal chanting of psalms was a novelty in the fourth century, since it was used in the Syna- gogue, and it is not at all likely that the Church would have waited so long before assimilating a practice highly conducive to the due order of public prayer. The real novelty consisted in the introduction of a more ornate melody into antiphonal psalmody. The soloists chanted the text of the psalm, and at stated intervals the people broke in upon them with a refrain. The Apostolic Constitutions speak of a custom, which, Eusebius tells us, was in use in his time. It had come to be no longer a matter of an interjected refrain, foreign to the text of the psalm, or linked onto each verse, but of a very short ending, sometimes a mere syllable, which the whole people chanted, drowning the voices of the soloists and finishing the word or phrase which they had left unfinished. This latter method seems to have been general in Syria, and had been used by the Jews at an earlier period. The refrain, a kind of exclamation foreign to the context, recurring at stated intervals, consistetl either of one word, or of two or three, though sometimes of a whole ver.se or troparium. This antiphonal method was also in use among the Jews, and is easily recognizable in the case of certain psalms. It was this method which the Church took as her own. St. Athanasius, speaking of the place of the Alleluia (q. v.) in the psalms, calls it a "re- frain " or a " response." The Alleluia is, as a matter of fact, the interjectional refrain of most frequent occurrence. It is referred to by TertuUian, from whose time onward this exclamation retains its place in ecclesiastical chant. In the Syrian and ICgyptian liturgies of the fourth century its role is a prominent one.
The formula used as a refrain varied in length, as has been already stated, but the general tendency
was probably towards brevity. A "Canon of the
Antiphons", published by Cardinal Pitra, includes
some very concise formulas, among which the Alle-
luia often recurs. The others are, as a rule, drawn
from the first verse of their respective psalms, while
similar ones are interjected between the verses of the
Scripture canticles. These endings may be com-
pared with those of the Roman litanies: "Miserere
nobis", " Exaudi nos, Domine", "Te rogamus, audi
nos". Even when the longer refrain took the place
of the exclamation, it did not exceed at the most,
a phrase of some fifteen words, St. Athanasius tells
us that the custom was due to a desire to allow the
people a share in the liturgy, while sparing them the
necessity of learning whole psalms by heart, which,
indeed, the mass of them would have been unable to
do. A great many texts might be quoted in the
Greek world alone, all showing that the reader or
singer (cantor) recited the whole psalm, but that
the response of the crowd broke in upon the recita-
tion at regular intervals. St. John Chrj-sostom, St.
Gregory of Nyssa, and Callimicus, all testify to this
custom. St. Basil, in his letter to the faithful of
Neo-Csesaraea, writes as follows: "Leaving to one
the duty of intoning the melody, the others answer
him." The same custom prevailed at Constantinople
in 536 for the singing of the Trisagion. Nor
should a signal instance be passed over in silence, i. e.
the hymn of St. Methodius in his "Banquet of the
Ten Virgins ", composed prior to the year 311. Each
alphabetical strophe sung by the bridesmaid, Thecla,
is followed by a uniform refrain, rendered by the
whole choir of virgins.
The antiphonal system is, therefore, found to be characterized by the interjection of a refrain, or of a simple exclamation. This system did not alter the customary method, but merely added a new and accessory element to it. The structure of the anti- phon thus consists of hymn-like strophes, inter- spersed with verses of Scripture, whereas the re- sponse is drawn from the psalm itself. In the psalmus responsorius, moreover, all present take up the refrain, while in the case of the antiphon, the hymn-like strophes are rendered alternately by the choir. The custom of calling alternate psalmody antiphonal is probably due to this fact. The hymn- writers found in these strophes inexhaustible mate- rial for elaboration, so that, little by little, the verses of the psalms had to give place to the additional strophes. There exist examples of psalnis or groups of psalms reduced in this way to three or four verses, and sometimes, even to a single verse.
Petit in Diet, d'arch. chrct. I, 2461-88.
H. Leclercq. Antiphonary (Lat. antiphonarium, antiphonariits, antiphonarms liber, antiphonale; Gr. i.iiTl(t>uvov anti- phon, antiphone, anthem), one of the present liturgi- cal books intended for use in choro (i. e. in the litur- gical choir), and originally characterized, as its name implies, by the assignment to it principally of the an- tiphons used in various parts of the Roman liturgy. It thus included gcnerically the antiphons and anti- phonal chants sung by cantor, congregation, and choir at Mass (antipli'incirium M issarum, OT gradale) and at the canonical Hours (anliphanarium ojjicii); but now it refers only to the sung iKirtions of the Divine OHice or Breviary. Other l^nglish equivalents for anti- phonary are antiphonar (still in reputable use) and antiphoner (considered obsolete by some English lexicographers, but still sometimes used in current literature). In the "Prioresses Tale" of Chaucer it occurs in the form "antiphonere":
He Alma Rcdcmptoris herde syngo As children lerned hir antiphonere.
The word Antiphonan/ had in the earlier Mid- dle .\ges .sometimes a more general, sometimes a
